I'm a bit sad not to see System Shock on that list. I still see it as one of the keystone games that took the action genre to the next level, from the "shoot everything" story-light (*cough*Doom*cough*) to something with more depth and character development.

The way those filesystems do it is that they implement an allocator of resources beneath the actual "filesystem", so that you can snapshot things by marking blocks CoW and then allocating non-filesystem space for the metadata.

As it happens, ext and friends don't roll that way, so adding that functionality breaks compatibility with those filesystems.

Also, most of the new filesystems which allow snapshots in the way I describe have some awesome problems - like needing to truncate a file in order to rm when the filesystem is full, because the way the allocator structure works means that you can't know ahead of time how much space it takes to atomically delete a file, either...

You're just wrong.

NTFS itself is case-sensitive - the Windows interface on top of it is case-preserving and disallows collisions in case-insensitive cases, but NTFS itself allows multiple files which would collide in a really case-insensitive filesystem.

If you don't believe me, go mount a filesystem using NTFS-3G, make two files which would collide on a case-insensitive filesystem, and be amazed as it fails to panic.

Or, if you really want proof, go read the NTFS specifications about how it behaves in various namespaces.

What everyone predicted has happened.
The servers fail just after the game is released, tens (hundreds?) of thousands of customers are highly unsatisfied, not to say irate.
This is already a PR disaster, should the servers keep failing (whatever the reasons - the people don't care if your servers are to weak to handle the load or if some /b/tards decide to DDOS them for "pool's closed" - they only care that they cannot play the game they BOUGHT) it will become a massive one.
Oh, and since Silent Hunter 5 was already cracked I suspect a crack for Assassin's Creed 2 won't be long.
So in a way, Ubisoft, you decided to ignore the warnings, now your tears, they taste delicious.

I have the dubious joy of working in a medium sized (I'd say 40 to 50 square meters) office with 5 more coworkers. Not only do we three south-side windows (along the south side wall of the building) but also the pipes for heating the 20+ other offices in the building run through ours along two walls. Add to that the body-heat of 6 humans, 12 PCs (two for each of us) 18 monitors (three for each of us - LCDs fortunately) - no air-conditioning of course. And now, to keep really comfy, put the guy who feels cold at 15 degrees celsius right next to the windows... Joy...

Hmmmm.....
Pay big bucks to legally play a game that puts me at the publisher's fickle mercy and demands constant internet access - and bandwith - responding with draconian punishment if I fail to provide this.

OR

Pay nothing and get an illegal copy that works fine from the word "GO"

Decisions, decisions...

DRM, that is Digital Right Management, is actually three evils in one.
First of all, many publishers view DRM as a way to manage (read increase) their rights while reducing the rights of the consumers, i.e. restrict the resale, activation limits, remote killswitches etc.
Secondly, many legitimate consumers find DRM annoying - they purchased a product but cannot use it as they see fit - be it that cannot transfer their music CD to their MP3 player, or play that game without contacting the publisher's master server.
And thirdly DRM is an excellent excuse NOT purchase something, but rather obtain it illegally. After all, stealing from a "nice company" does feel wrong. Screwing some corporate morloch that does its best to screw you feels much less wrong.

I'm genuinely curious how you produced an AC's name.